Study: Older mobile social gamers play less, but aren't afraid to spend

Old folk don't have the time to wait for energy in their iPhone and Android games--they have ... crossword puzzles to do. Or something like that. It's no wonder then that MocoSpace found in a recent study that older mobile social gamers spend less time playing their smartphone games of choice than their younger counterparts, but way more spend on virtual goods in said games.

MocoSpace, a mobile social games network with 22 million players, surveyed nearly 500,000 MocoSpace users between August and November to find out more about their play and spending habits. Unsurprisingly, mobile social gamers between 25 and 35-years-old spent the most time in their games: 67.9 million collective minutes over three months. However, only 22 percent of players in that same age group bought virtual goods in that time period.

Players aged 45 and older, on the other hand, spent just 23.6 million collective minutes in their games of choice, the least of all age groups. Despite that, a whopping 70 percent of the older gamers spent cold, hard credit on virtual goods within the games. Granted, the sample size of older gamers compared to younger--30,297 to 190,210--is far smaller, but the percentage is nevertheless massive.

So, old folks that happen to play games on smartphones either happen to have more disposable income than younger mobile gamers, have less time to waste or a combination of both. (Keep in mind, however, that is study solely consists of MocoSpace users.) You'd think that old curmudgeons would scoff at the thought of buying virtual playthings, but here we are.

Are you an older social gamer that buys lots of in-game items? Do you think these findings might be accurate across the board? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.